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How I made it: The supplements for success

Gerry Finn, managing director of Beeline Healthcare

WITH four dogs and a cat at home, Gerry Finn has plenty of opportunity to study the habits of his furry friends — and he believes he has learnt a lot from them. “I’m very fond of animals,” said Finn. “You have to think like they do and be constantly on the lookout for threats and predators poised to attack you.”

For the managing director of Beeline Healthcare, the “predators” are his competitors in the food supplements market, the multinationals that can swoop in and undercut his firm on price — if not quality.

So far, he has had few serious problems beating off the competition, and the manufacturing business he set up in 1988 with Liz Taylor, the financial director, is now a €2m operation that employs 25 staff.

The idea dawned when the chemist was working for Becton Dickinson, a medical technology firm, and spotted an anomaly in the Irish